Archive for 21 Jun 2007

Operation Arrowhead Ripper: Day One

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 in Military

Michael Yon reports.

Operation Arrowhead Ripper: Day One

The first day of operation Arrowhead Ripper was intense. The Army is giving full access to the battlefield, and while on base full access to the TOC (HQ) which means I see the raw truth on the ground, and as it feeds through the TOC. They are hiding nothing. Or if they are, it’s in plain view. (Special operations notwithstanding.) A reporter can see as much as he or she can stand.

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A little Thin Lizzy for the boys…

Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away
Haven’t changed, haven’t much to say
But man, I still think them cats are crazyThey were asking if you were around
How you was, where you could be found
Told them you were living downtown
Driving all the old men crazy

The boys are back in town
The boys are back in town

Give ’em hell boys.

Counterinsurgency Operations

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 in Military, Politics

Badger 6 discusses counterinsurgency ops.

The Reality of Counterinsurgency OPS

AS things progress here in Iraq and as the situation changes there become new things to criticize and critique. Some of that of course is perfectly appropriate, however some of the criticism also demonstrates the fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of counterinsurgency operations.

In war, generally the goal is not to kill everybody on the opposing side. Rather the goal is to make the losses too painful for the other side to continue to absorb and otherwise make them feel that resistance is a futile effort.

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This next entry is from Small Wars Journal. Educational.

We introduce two articles by Don Vandergriff (Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War) on the importance of adaptability in our military leaders with an excerpt from Chapter 5 (page 5-31) of the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency (COIN) Manual.

Learning and Adapting

When an operation is executed, commanders may develop the situation to gain a more thorough situational understanding. This increased environmental understanding represents a form of operational learning and applies across all Logical Lines of Operations. Commanders and staffs adjust the operation’s design and plan based on what they learn. The result is an ongoing design-learn-redesign cycle.

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